Best tools/utilities for troubleshooting a slow Mac

[Fantomas9mm]

Howdy folks.

A friend has asked me to take a look at her machine which is "painfully slow".

I reckon i will do the following.

Reset Pram.
Boot into safe mode.
Run disk utillity.
Secure empty trash.
Clear browser caches and cookies.
Ask her to delete unused apps and media.
Just wondering if most of you guys would agree with the above.

Also, can you reccmoned any free tools or utillites that will assist in speeding up a machine.

I've heard about MacKeeper and Clean my Mac but these are paid apps so i am little slow to part cash.

Anybody know any good free ones?

Thanks in advance.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Stay away from CleanMyMac and MacKeeper:

One app that I would not recommend, based on the number of complaints that have been posted in this forum and elsewhere, is CleanMyMac. As an example: CleanMyMac cleaned too much.

Cleaning apps are not needed: Five Mac maintenance myths

Can the following help?

Performance Tips For Mac OS X​

And to uninstall applications:

Best way to FULLY DELETE a program​

 

[robgendreau]

Look at Activity Monitor; it can give you some clues. Some users actually have processes running they are completely unaware of.

Rob

 

[takeshi74]

Looking at resource utilization is always a good start regardless of the OS of the machine you're troubleshooting for issues like this. Don't just randomly apply "fixes".